Lots of people will be away from their computer for the holiday. Some people can only get Online at school. That's part of the drop.
People usually wait for the latest patch to do
serious work on their mods and shipsets.
What I'm thinking is ... how many people will get a copy of SE4 for Christmas. Is SE4 the sort of game you suprise someone with?
If so, there will be tons of Posts soon of tihe topics "My colonies are empty", "Sphereworld components don't fit on my baseships", "How can I play Klingons"